Power in the Blood Read Free Page A

along rails into the Pennsylvanian night.
    Breakfast came from the same wicker basket: bread and chicken fat, plus two dried apricots apiece. Mr. Canby, a large man despite his incompleteness, was seen to stare at his portion for some time before eating it, his expression doleful. Lunch saw no change other than the Canbys’ having to reach deeper into the basket. Mealtimes had already become less rowdy, almost sullen occasions.
    In the evening, when the train reached Pittsburgh, there was a treat for all—dinner in the station restaurant. The menu was lengthy, but everyone had soup, Mrs. Canby having protested at the exorbitant price of every meat dish. Mr. Canby spooned soup under his mustache, his face darkened by unknown forces within. Glaring at his emptied bowl, he insisted there be a dessert. Over his wife’s objections, he ordered pie, and then pie again, not one belly having truly been filled. Mrs. Canby refused to look in his direction as they herded their charges back to the car, now hitched onto yet another train. The benches seemed less uncomfortable, an advantage of repletion, which Mr. Canby referred to as “intestinal fulfillment, like a live human’s supposed to feel at least once every twenty-four hours for good health.”
    The morning of the third day revealed Ohio, and now there was real excitement in the car. This was the first state in which it was possible to be selected for adoption. Orphans wondered, silently or aloud, at their chances. Clay was scornful; he told Zoe and Drew they had to hold out for more westerly regions. “Ohio’s just not far enough,” he said.
    In the afternoon it happened. The car was detached from the train and shunted onto a siding at the edge of a sizable town. A council representative approached smilingly to speak with the Canbys and suggested bringing all orphans to the town hall, where a crowd had already gathered in anticipation.
    The Children’s Aid Society was in its fifteenth year of good work, having begun in 1854, and a larger than usual turnout of prospective foster parents had assembled to survey the spring crop of adoptees. A diphtheria epidemic of unprecedented virulence the previous winter had sharpened interest in the children.
    “Plenty of families lost their little ones just recent,” the councilman whispered, keeping his voice from the straggling line of painfully hushed orphans following behind. “These here’ll be snapped up in double-quick time, I guarantee. Folks have come in from a hundred miles around, farmers mostly. They’ll be eager for the younguns, all right.”
    Inside the town hall, arranged on a long bench covered by cloth, without a single chair to impede access, a feast was waiting—a communal celebration of the orphans’ arrival. Anxious adult faces were everywhere, yet these were thrust into the background by the endless table of food, real food, present in variety and abundance. There were cold meats and cakes; fresh bread and pies; an assortment of dried fruit, notably apricots (these would be ignored); jars of preserves with their melted paraffin seals dug out; butter molded into rough blocks of tantalizing yellow; crocks of milk still smelling of the udder. Not a feast—a banquet.
    “Fall to and take your share,” commanded the councilman, and not an orphan hesitated. Surrounded by questing eyes and subtly pointing fingers, they attacked the fruits of central Ohio and set about gorging themselves. The councilman, a student of human nature, gently pushed the Canbys toward the food. “Have at it, one and all,” he urged.
    Mr. Canby held back several seconds more for propriety’s sake, then joined in under the guise of supervisor. “You, boy! Take less of a handful than that! Manners! One mouthful at a time there, laddie. Don’t be eating too fast now, or the cramps’ll follow … No need to shove! Plenty for everyone! Pass me a slice of that ham, missie … thank you kindly.”
    His wife resisted in agonized decorum